"Worst television coverage in Olivier history," said one tweeter of the BBC's live Olivier awards coverage. "And that includes last year, when it wasn't even on." Indeed, the broadcast of last night's ceremony was a wasted opportunity. We were promised interactive red-button coverage on the BBC, along with a live radio broadcast, plus I'd Do Anything winner Jodie Prenger roaming the red carpet to talk to the great and the good – how could anything go wrong?

Plenty, unfortunately: beginning with Prenger. She was amiable, likable and as bouncy as one of the little dogs she judged on Over the Rainbow – but journalism is not her forte. She and best actress nominee Tracie Bennett had a little natter about a television series they'd both worked on; she embarrassed Caissie Levy by asking whether she was still in Hair, which closed last year; she failed to recognise Rupert Everett and Kara Tointon.

Then it was over to the glittering ceremony. Except it wasn't, in fact, because host Paul Gambaccini and critic Matt Wolf were broadcasting live in their civvies from a dressing room at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Gambaccini tried to brazen it out by telling us this was the room used by Rowan Atkinson when he starred in Oliver!, and thus an appropriate place to anchor a live television broadcast. Clearly, however, their focus was their radio listeners – who couldn't see them, nor guests being crushed in so they could fit into camera shot, nor the plastic tubs of grapes sitting on the table in front of them. At one point a member of the production team even stumbled in front of the camera. Professional it wasn't. So basically our "live red-button coverage of the ceremony" was live red-button coverage of a radio broadcast, which was roughly as tedious as it sounds.

Worse still, we didn't see the winners of any of the technical, opera or dance categories receiving their awards; and most appallingly rude of all, we didn't see best actress winner Nancy Carroll giving her acceptance speech, because Gambaccini and Wolf were interviewing Gok Wan instead. And they weren't saying anything interesting, either; a boringly predictable number of the celebrities they dragged in to talk to hadn't seen any of the shows being honoured. There were moments of comedy, however unintentional: Elaine Paige suddenly announcing that she had single-handedly arranged for the Oliviers to be broadcast on television was pretty good (so at least we know who to blame).

And, on a night that is supposed to be a celebration of all that's best about British theatre, courtesy of our two American hosts, Broadway featured rather too heavily for my liking. "Do you have plans to perform the role anywhere else?" they asked John Owen-Jones, currently the West End's Phantom of the Opera. "It hasn't yet made it to New York," they sniffed about a show that hasn't transferred. "A move to Broadway is on the cards!" they said excitedly about plays that look like they might appeal to an American audience.

Seriously, though, how could the BBC get it so wrong? The Society of London Theatre, organisers of the awards, were unofficially reported on Twitter saying that complaints had been received, but that ultimate broadcast decisions lay with the BBC – even including a bizarre five-minute advert for Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies, a piece that was pointedly ignored by the awards themselves. (Today SOLT declined to comment.) But what's so tough about putting a couple of cameras at the back of the stalls and the front of the circle, and broadcasting the entire ceremony? The red-button stuff has its place, and if people want to hear radio commentary they can switch to that. But as a broadcast package it was poor.

The after-ceremony BBC News coverage was much better, with the corporation's arts editor Will Gompertz and journalist Jane Hill discussing the shows and issues that directly affect theatre: they lead with theatre professionals' letter to the Observer about the cuts to arts funding, covered regional theatre in some detail and featured sensible interviews with the award-winners about their roles and productions, even in supposedly niche categories like opera. But who was watching by then? Everyone I know had already turned off in disgust.